He’d pointed one calloused finger at it. “Siphon these rocks,” he’d said to Patrick. “And your mother’ll never again lay sick in bed.”
And he had. Eventually.
It took weeks to make any progress. The idium he’d stolen from the National House had long since begun to wane. The magic that remained in him was weak. Reluctant. Most of those terranium rocks had crumbled, splitting unevenly, the bluff inside made unusable. To this day, there are two holes in the plaster of the Colson’s kitchen, where Patrick had launched the ruined ore away in frustration.
“Easy, son,” his dad had said, over and over. “Easy does it. Be patient with it. Feel the hollow? That’s where the ink is hiding. Split it right down the middle.”
But the ore was delicate. It shattered at the slightest disruption, contaminat
